Kevin Remigio-Simpliciano looks proudly at the wall he built with his classmates during Waipahu High School's first-ever Construction Academy class this past year, and remembers how much fun and work it was to lead the group's culminating project.

"I wish I started from my freshman year so I had more years," said the 18-year-old, who wants to follow in his uncle's footsteps and pursue a career in construction.

Remigio-Simpliciano shares a passion and skill for woodworking with 17-year-old Justin Arquines, though Arquines worked on a different final project for his Construction Academy class at Radford High School. Arquines and 14 classmates built two dollhouses, which he said was both the hardest and most rewarding project for him.

"It was fun putting it together and learning the different parts of how the houses were built," he said after studying building and construction since his freshman year. "It was the first time we actually had to do everything."

All the hard work should soon pay off for the two recent graduates: The experience puts them one step ahead of others trying to break into the construction job market.

Remigio-Simpliciano and Arquines are two of the 232 high school students who participated in the Construction Academy training program, which aims to develop interest in the booming construction industry and provide a strong foundational education.

The Construction Academy works as a pre-apprenticeship, giving students such as Remigio-Simpliciano a head start on their goal of joining Honolulu Community College's apprenticeship program, or another post-secondary professional training program.

HCC and the state Department of Education piloted the program at Kailua, Radford, Waipahu, Mililani, Kahuku, McKinley, Pearl City and Waialua high schools last fall during the second year of a three-year federal grant given to the state by the U.S. Department of Labor. The grant provided about $1.5 million to launch the program in Hawai'i, said Kyle Chock, the Construction Academy's grant writer and executive director of Pacific Resource Partnership.

"Everyone should deserve a chance," Remigio-Simpliciano said of his experience. And it seems like everyone will.

In addition, Gov. Linda Lingle signed a bill on June 23 giving $5.5 million annually to community colleges throughout the state so they can develop their own Construction Academy partnerships with local high schools.

Every high school on O'ahu has shown interest in the program, though they all are in "different stages of implementation," according to Michael Barros, curriculum specialist at the DOE. Twenty-nine high schools statewide will participate in the Construction Academy this coming school year, with 16 of them on O'ahu.

The program aims to solve a critical labor shortage in the industry while giving students a head start on a career in construction.

In approving state funding for the program, lawmakers cited estimates that Hawai'i's construction industry will need 10,000 to 26,000 more workers to meet demand over the next several years.

"The motivation behind the bill is to fill a labor shortage that presently exists," said state Sen. Clayton Hee. "The best situation would be for labor to come from Hawai'i."

There is "a tremendous upswing in construction at the moment, and the last thing we need is to have the work being taken up by imported labor," said Hee, D-23rd (Kane'ohe, Kahuku).

Curtis Goya, a building and construction teacher at Leilehua High School, praised the program's goals. "It's an opportunity which I think is at the right time for these kids," Goya said. "And I don't know what they're gonna do if they miss this boat. I wish I had this."

A carpenter apprentice at HCC starts off at $13.08 an hour and a drywall apprentice earns $13.18 an hour. Every 1,001 hours they get a raise, working their way up to a journeyman's pay of $30.90 an hour, according to the Hawaii Carpenters Union, which hires directly from the apprenticeship program.

"The cycle has come around, and now is the time to make a very good living within the trade," said Timothy In, a building and construction teacher at Waipahu High School. "Especially now, when there's such a need for qualified workers — to me, it's an opportunity that many of them shouldn't pass up."

One of the ways the Construction Academy increases student interest is by exposing both boys and girls to a wide variety of jobs within the industry, said Chock, the grant writer.

Tanya Aquino, one of four girls in her Construction Academy class at Radford, said she would like to see more girls participate. "I think most girls think it's more of a macho thing, and they don't know that girls can actually do it and that it's not that hard just because you're a girl," she said.

"It was a new and different experience," said the 17-year-old recent graduate about designing and building a miniature race car for her final project. "The most important thing is that you learned you're always going to make mistakes, and you just have to fix it."

In said females in his class usually outperform boys when it comes to following directions and paying attention. "We need more females within the industry for those reasons."

The Construction Academy also is gaining more student interest by countering the stigma that shop class is just for boys not interested in academics, Chock said. "This is an intellectually demanding pathway," he said. "It really takes a special person to do this kind of work."

Denis Mactagone, director of training programs at the Hawaii Carpenters Union, agreed. "A (construction worker) used to be looked at as a guy with no education — who just did manual labor — but it's not so," he said.

Jeff Cadiz tells his building and construction students at Mililani High School that the skills they learn in the program go beyond carpentry.

"You gotta use this experience to enter the Construction Academy and to branch out from there," he said. "I told them you can go into other fields. It's all up to you."

Nontraditional construction jobs that could appeal to all kinds of college-bound and other high school students include work as civil engineers, safety engineers, accountants, architects and office workers. Both Aquino and Arquines will use their experiences to study architecture at HCC.

"It's a big tent — there's room for everyone," Chock said.

The program also helps teach students the importance of staying in school, Chock said.

Of the ninth-graders in Hawai'i public schools, only 65 percent graduate, according to Chock. "We hope that the Construction Academy can reach more of these kids who are just falling through the cracks," he said.

With the program, students learn "why they need math, why they need English," Goya said. "It opens the door and makes them realize that what they're doing now is going to prepare them for after."

That is especially important because 40 percent of the applicants for HCC's apprenticeship are unable to pass the basic eighth-grade-level math test, he said.

The Construction Academy also gives students dual credit —meaning they will receive credit for both high school and an affiliated community college, whether they enroll in a trade apprenticeship program or not. "The value to the student is that they can do work at high school that they can use in college," Barros said.

The program has been well received at Waipahu, Barros said. "Students who were leaning towards that are probably more excited now."

A highlight of the program is the partnership between the classroom and industry, where companies donate tools and equipment, and bring workers into the classroom once a month as guest speakers.

Actus Lend Lease, a community development company, met with 50 to 60 students at Waipahu in the past year, bringing in safety officers, accountants, project superintendents, subcontractors and supervisors.

The experience was "helpful for students, because each individual had a story to tell in terms of how they got into the business," In said.

Bennett Evangelista, vice president for government and community relations at Actus, said the program will help the company with its recruiting efforts.

"You will not have a difficult time recruiting people, because you're investing in a work force that's strong and able to meet the demands of our industry," Evangelista said.

A change in the program this year is expected to strengthen the connection between classroom and industry and also address the shortage of qualified shop teachers, by bringing in professionals as full-time teachers.

Community colleges will be allowed to bring professional practitioners into the Construction Academy classrooms, bypassing the more stringent DOE teacher requirements, according to Brian Furuto, external affairs director at HCC. He said there will be about 20 professionals joining the program as classroom teachers this year.

Having a professional come and talk is "gonna be better than any video I show or textbook I go over with my students," said Cadiz, who hosted several guest speakers at Mililani this past year.

The pilot program's success has garnered national recognition. Chock will help present the Hawai'i Construction Academy model to the U.S. Department of Labor conference in Anaheim, Calif., this month.

"We started the ball here, and now the momentum has attracted some national attention," he said. "Others are interested in replicating our model."

Reach Christine Terada at cterada@honoluluadvertiser.com .